freethoughtandmetaphor

It seems that poets are the only artists who use their art to explore or describe their own process.  Visual artists don’t have that option. Novelists may write about writers, but it’s not the same as this Ars Poetica, which is almost a sub-genre, though it’s probably better to see it as a theme or topic.

Here’s a recent effort of mine.

Journey

The route a poem takes is not determined
by the root it comes from. Where
do the words want to go? Their road
has no mile markers; I cannot measure
how far I’ve come. Why do I need to?
Calculation is for highways, keeping
the mind busy on a paved and graded
artery for speed. Since school years
there have been no grades on
this writing process, which slows
to a walk, a halt when the cairn
by the trail falls and the shine
of the separate stones enchants me.

Am I trying to console myself, and my fellow poets too, for the fact that not every attempt can be brought to conclusion?  Both trail and stones are images I’m very fond of and perhaps it’s time to put them in a personal “overused” folder!